"When the Giants Come to Town..." is my blog intended to chronicle my thoughts on San Francisco Giants baseball. My special interest is in prospects and the farm system, but of course, will comment on all aspects of the San Francisco Giants. I will also comment on baseball in general, particularly from a fantasy baseball perspective. I hope you will find the site informative, and invite you to join in the discussion.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Game Wrap 8/6/2017: Giants 6 D'Backs 3

Jarrett Parker provide the spark on offense and Jeff Samardzija ground through another QS to win the rubber game of the series. The Giants have had a few blowout wins this season followed by faceplates. We'll see how this one works out, but it felt like something more sustainable. Key Lines:

Buster Posey 1B- 0 for 1, 3 BB, 2 SB(4). BA= .324. The D'Backs clearly wanted no part of Buster Posey if they had an open base. For his part, Buster played some amazing D at 1B and staying out of the squat seemed to result in some friskiness in the legs on the basepaths.

Hunter Pence RF- 2 for 4. BA= .251. Pence picked up his good friend Buster Posey after another intentional walk loaded the bases in the 3'rd inning. Pence reached for a changeup and yanked it down the LF line to drive in 2. Pence might have had a chance for 2, but almost fell down getting out of the batters box and had to beat a retreat after a hard turn around 1B.

Miguel Gomez 2B- 2 for 4. BA= .258. Gomez singled in the second inning and came home on Parker's double. Kid can hit. If he can play decent defense at 2B, watch out. Joe Panik might be hearing footsteps coming up from behind. Giants clearly like what they've seen from Gomez and Panik just as clearly has at least 1 foot in the doghouse.

Jarrett Parker LF- 1 for 4, HR(1). BA= .265. What a shot in the arm Parker has been for the Giants since his callup! In addition to the dinger, he unleashed an amazing throw from deep LF to nail, and I mean nail, JD Martinez attempting to score on a sac fly. D'Backs didn't even bother to ask for a review. In 3 games since his callup, Parker is 6 for 13 with 3 doubles and a dinger plus 2 OF assists. That had Amy G wondering aloud after the game what might have been had Jarrett not suffered that somewhat freak injury that robbed him of the better part of the first 4 months of the season, and that is an interesting question.

Jeff Samardzija RHP- 1 for 1, 2B. BA= .109. Shark hit one a ton in the 3'rd inning and he thought is was gone for sure. Bat flip, HR trot, the Works. He had to kick it up a notch to get to 2B when the ball bounced off the CF wall. He then had to watch his teammates in the dugout point at Ty Blach's flexed bicep. What a hoot!

Jeff Samardzija RHP- 6.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.15. Not a really outstanding performance but he ground it out for another QS and gave his team a chance to win.

Albert Suarez RHP- 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's, Save(1). ERA= 3.72. A couple of games ago I said Suarez is not a closer. I might have to take that back. His stuff was so good in this one, Boch let him finish it despite the Save situation in the 9'th. Suarez' curveball was a thing of beauty and he kept breaking of one great yakker after another that just froze the D'Backs batters.

He's just not playing that well. 16th in OPS. 32nd (tied) in 2B bWAR and 18th in fWAR. His fielding isn't as strong this year (-8 DRS where he was positive in 2015 & 2016) but not horrible as he still has a good range. He's a couple of good months with the bat, but he's a couple of bad ones too.

In the end, he's been 'just a guy' this year. Maybe a bit over average at 2B. But you can't expect to lock your job down if you're playing like 'just a guy' when the team needs you to contribute at a high level.

As has been clear all year, without someone behind Posey to make "them" pay, "they" will not pitch to him.Sunday, Posey was finally moved out of the useless 4 cleanup, and the #'s 4, 5, and 7 drove in 2 runs each and Gomez at #6 kept things going. Progress? Well, winning 2 of 3 from someone is something. Genius? With Bochy it was desperation although to anyone not making up the lineup, it was clear it wasn't working.Not to rain on Amy's parade, we've seen Parker's spurts before: when he's hot he's very hot. For sure, his defense is up a couple notches.

Wow! What a game. Was it just me or did the Giants seem more energized this game. Double steals?!? Posey doing his best Rickey Henderson impression. Posey getting walked like Bonds. Posey fielding 1B like J.T. Snow. I am in total agreement about Gomez. I am no scout by any means, but he seems to be fielding 2B really good so far. Plus his bat is really impressing me. Especially when you think about the fact that he skipped AAA ball. Visions of Carlos Baerga are swimming around my head. Parker is playing like a beast. His throw to the plate was amazing. Lastly, Ryder Jones reminds me of an All-Star at the plate...... Dallas Keuchel. I hope he gets a hit soon and turns it around, because dude is UGLY at the plate right now.

Not only did Parker make that great run-saving throw yesterday, but that big-time catch he made on Saturday was pretty impressive. Statcast gave him a Five-Star rating on it as it had a catch probability of just 16%. So that's two big-time plays he's made in the last two games.

It does make you wonder what LF would have looked like without him missing all that time.

Also, Hundley's 2-out RBI single. That ball was 8 inches outside the plate. When he did that reach and knocked in those two runs, I had Sandoval (before he blew up his career) flashback as Sandoval was a heck of a bad-ball hitter.

And I got a laugh out of Samardzija's 'not a home run.' They cut to the dugout when he was on second and Bumgarner and Blach were razzing him with Blach pointing to his biceps and saying something that was probably along the lines of 'you need a pair of these!'

Before everyone jumps on the Parker bandwagon, remember he was the Giants opening day LFer this year, started 2 of the first 3 games (played in all 3), started 8 of the first 13 games, played in 9, and slashed .143/.217/.238, before ending on the DL and injuring himself badly running into a wall during a Sacramento rehab. He was brought up not because he was doing well in Sacramento (he wasn't, slashing .232 /.353 /.357 with 3 HRs in 30 games) but he's out of options and would have to clear waivers. Maybe the Giants tried that with revocable waivers, but in any event he's had 3 terrific games and now he's Barry Bonds with a live arm!There was his remarkable 17-game stretch at the end of 2015 (.400/.467/.900) including the memorable 3-HR game against Oakland. Was that a signs of things to come?Last year he played in 63 Giants games slashing .236/.358/.394His defense has been unbelievable especially for those of us who watched him a couple years ago in Sacramento, but maybe an old dog (28) can learn new tricks.Parker (at current levels), Slater, and Chris Shaw could be very good OF in 2018. (Pence and Span would make up 96% of that OF payroll!)Shaw has shown sustained 1 HR/20 ABs in his climb through the minors. And maybe Slade Heathcott could be part of that mix, too, at least he's a "true" CFer.

If Parker ever has any type of big league career, he is going to be a polarizing player IMO. He's going to have streaks of amazingness followed by streaks of not so goodness. I personally don't like that kind of player, rather have a guy that day in, day out know what you are getting. I think the Giants think the same way and don't believe Parker is the answer they are seeking long term but might as well try him for the rest of the year. Odd man out is poor Mac, I think we are moving on from him too.

Well said. Love the look, lean and hungry!He's the greatest when he's hot, Close your eyes when he's not.50-50, live with that!40-60, getting icky,30-70, misery plenty,20-80, drag is weighty.This is what you get with Jarrett Parker -- pick your poison!

About Me

I grew up in Northern California near the Napa Valley. I got interested in baseball and the Giants by listening to Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons broadcast Giants games on KSFO. My early heros were Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and a guy you don't always think of, Jim Ray Hart. When I got older and was in school and early career, I didn't have time to follow as closely, but I tried to look up their boxscores each day and catch an occasional game on TV. One habit I got into at an early age was looking up the stats of their minor league players in The Sporting News. That became more difficult as TSN moved away from comprehensive baseball coverage. Now, of course, technology and affluence has changed all that. The internet is teaming with farm system/minor league information as well as college and high school baseball. Satellite TV enables me to get most of the Giants games on TV. I'm married with 2 wonderful daughters, who like to watch games with me.